Frey looked downcast. ‘You’ve lost men. And I know you care about them. What do you tell yourself?’
‘Some of them I’ve lost to you,’ she reminded him. ‘And it hurts, Darian. I won’t lie to you. But I tell myself I did my best, and that losses are inevitable in our profession, and all manner of things like that. As long as I don’t abuse their loyalty, I can look at myself in the mirror. The day I do is the day I don’t deserve to lead them. Same applies to you.’
Frey smiled weakly, tapping his fingers on the table. ‘I was kind of hoping you’d find a way to make me feel better, not worse.’
Then she did something that surprised him. She sat forward in her chair, hesitated as if uncertain, then quickly reached across the table and laid her hand over his, stilling his fingers. He felt a flush of warmth at her touch. Just this small contact was a gesture of extraordinary intimacy from her. Damn, how he wanted this woman. He couldn’t be near her without feeling the urge to slide his arm around her waist, to kiss her neck, to be close to her. But this was not the woman he left behind, so he never did. He had to let her come to him: each small step needed to be Trinica’s, with no sudden moves on his part.
If somebody somewhere gave out medals for restraint, then he reckoned he was due a couple for sure.
‘Okay,’ he said, breathing out as if he’d just hit the crest of a Shine high. ‘That helps.’
She drew her hand away as quickly as she’d put it there, and looked almost bashful for having done it. That was Trinica. One moment she was all elegance, the next she was a child. She could dance and laugh and then she’d cut your tongue out. She would be giddy with happiness and then suddenly drop into a blackness that no one could save her from.
But she turned her anger on him less and less these days. And her dark moods didn’t seem to reach her quite so often when he was around.
She looked up suddenly, struck with an idea. ‘You need a first mate.’
‘Is that an offer?’‹ Sffe la/font›
She laughed brightly. ‘I don’t think so. You might be the toast of the barflies but you haven’t caught up with me yet. I just think it might help to have someone to share the burden of command.’
‘Who would I choose?’ he asked. ‘Pinn’s too thick, Harkins is too scared, Malvery wouldn’t want it and Silo’s practically mute: he just does what he’s told. Crake’s smart but he’s no leader.’
‘Which leaves Jez.’
‘Couldn’t pick Jez. She’s capable enough, but she’s a half-Mane. You’ve seen her flip out.’
‘Yes I have. And it saved our lives that day on the Storm Dog. Is it so bad?’
‘The crew… listen, they all know how great she is at her job, but she’ll always make them uneasy. And it doesn’t help that she keeps to herself so much.’
‘Well,’ said Trinica. ‘It’s your choice, of course.’
But Frey really couldn’t think of anyone suitable. ‘You don’t have a first mate. You’ve got that ugly feller Crund as your bosun.’
‘He deals with the crew, but I don’t need someone to discuss command decisions. The slightest hint of uncertainty would undermine me. I’m a woman leading a crew of violent men. I keep my own counsel on the Delirium Trigger. ’
‘Must be lonely.’
‘It’s what I have to do.’
There was something in her tone that brought the conversation to a halt. Frey became aware of the clink of cutlery, the murmur of the other diners in the restaurant, the steady flow of the river beyond the veranda. It felt like a moment, an empty space that was waiting to be filled, and before he knew it, he said:
‘I miss you.’
He was immediately appalled. It was unforgivable to drop his guard like that. He’d been lulled by the night into spilling his feelings in a mess all over the table, and now he’d ruined everything. He waited for her to tell him not to be foolish, to wither him with her scorn.
Instead, she simply said: ‘ I know.’ And there was such regret and sorrow in her eyes that she didn’t need to say the rest of it, the part that couldn’t be spoken aloud.
I miss you too.
He poured mor SHe mise wine, and they drank and ordered dessert. They talked of other things and didn’t mention it again. But from that point on till the end of the meal, Frey had to restrain himself from punching the air for joy.
Nine
The iron ball sat in the centre of the summoning circle, and didn’t move.
Crake tapped the gauges on his portable oscilloscope. His fingers moved across the array of brass dials. He checked the wires leading to the tuning poles. Everything was in order. The phantom frequency that had been plaguing him all day was nowhere to be found.
He sat at his desk and let his head sink into his hands. ‘I can’t work under these conditions,’ he complained.
Bess stirred in the corner of his makeshift sanctum. Perhaps she thought he was talking to her. When it became clear that he wasn’t, she settled back to dormancy with a creak of leather and a jingle of chainmail.
It had all begun that morning.
Crake had managed a good night’s sleep on the flight back to Shasiith – thankfully there were no encounters with the Navy to wake him. He was up early while most of the crew were still in their bunks. After rising he visited the head, where he had his first solid bowel movement in days. Encouraged by such a good start to the day, he decided to be productive. He wanted to try out a new technique he’d read about in a daemonist text he picked up before they left Vardia.
It was nothing dangerous, or even difficult. Just an improved method to identify the properties of minor daemons. It was a procedure that carried little risk, and he felt safe running it in his insecure sanctum.
But there was a problem. His oscilloscope readings, used to detect the presence of the daemons, were being skewed by a faint signal that roamed through the upper frequencies. At first he thought it was a machine fault, but all his tests showed that his equipment was working fine.
He decided it was something on the Ketty Jay. A fluctuation in the electrical systems, perhaps, or a vibrating pipe that happened to stray across his field of detection. Just one of the many annoyances that came from having to practise the Art in the back of an aircraft’s cargo hold, with only a tarpaulin curtain and some crates for privacy.
By mid-morning the signal was driving him to distraction. He asked Silo to help find the problem, but the engineer seemed distracted. His assistance was half-hearted at best, and came to nothing.
Event Vem, aoblem, butually Crake abandoned his original plan in favour of solving the issue at hand. He set up a small interference field with the tuning poles and wired a resonator to pads attached to a small iron ball, which he placed inside the summoning circle. He intended to thrall a daemon to the ball, and then set it to find the rogue frequency. If all went well, the ball would be attracted to the source of the frequency, and he could follow it. The formulae in his books helped him determine the bandwidth he needed to search to find the kind of daemon he needed. It was a simple task, child’s play really.
Simple, but not quick. His target was elusive. It took him several hours of patient searching to drag in a suitable candidate. By bombarding the daemon with sound, he befuddled it for long enough to break its connection with its place of origin. In doing so, he thralled it to the iron ball, trapping it in the world that the uneducated called reality. After that, he doused it in the troublesome signal. This daemon was a seeker, a barely sentient wisp from the aether: it would find the first thing it was set to. The signal was like a rag to a bloodhound, to give it something to track.